Collateral Damage
by Gamebird
Summary: Season Four, after The Fifth Stage. After the debacle at Mercy Heights, Sylar goes hunting easier prey. He finds it.


**Title: **Collateral Damage  
><strong>Rating: <strong>PG-13  
><strong>Warnings: <strong>Mentions of violence  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Sylar, Heidi, Simon, Monty. No pairings.  
><strong>Word Count: <strong>~1,500  
><strong>Summary: <strong>After Mercy Heights, Sylar goes hunting easier prey. He finds it.  
><strong>Setting: <strong>Season Four, immediately following The Fifth Stage.  
><strong>Author's Notes: <strong>Written for Heroes_Contest one-shot challenge #29, "Collateral Damage."

Sylar stalked off from Mercy Heights, feeling sulky and humiliated. He'd been beaten by the Petrellis, _again_. What was it going to take to let him win one against them? He was supposed to be _special_, powerful beyond measure and capable of extraordinary feats, yet he was constantly being thwarted, captured, shot, manipulated, betrayed and just plain _hurt_. He was really, _really_ tired of it. It should have been a consolation to know that Nathan, for all his perfect Petrelli life, had been having a pretty botched up time of things too, culminating in his murder and the desecration of his corpse and memory by his own mother. But it didn't make Sylar feel any better to know that. It just sucked even more to know that not even being a Petrelli made your life easy.

Speaking of which, the confrontation with Peter had not gone as expected. Sylar had been defeated physically, strategically, and emotionally. He hadn't expected any of that from the dimwitted wonder-boy. He didn't think Peter would be expecting him to drop in at his work; he didn't think the remaining scion of the family would have an ability worth worrying about; and he certainly didn't think Peter would be able to twist his insides around so thoroughly that he lost track of who the hell he was _again_. Okay, lesson learned (at least for the time being): stay the fuck away from Peter.

There were other Petrellis he could vent his wrath on and he certainly did not feel like he was done with the family yet. Someone needed to pay for what had been done to him and they were the obvious candidates. He wasn't going to bother with Angela – he'd already tried that and his embarrassing impotence was still stinging in the back of his mind. Besides, it seemed very likely she'd see him coming. The only way to expunge his shame was to prove 'Nathan' couldn't stop him from picking whatever victim he chose. He'd go after an easier target than Peter or Angela. Even if it did seem a little weak and pathetic, he needed something to get his feet back under him and his head back in the game.

After a day and a little simple orchestration, Sylar sat in the kitchen of one Heidi Petrelli, exchanging simpering pleasantries that seemed appropriate to the neighbor woman whose form he was in at the time. It was Saturday. The boys were in the dining room nearby enjoying the chocolate chip cookies Sylar had thoughtfully provided – all the better to get the three of them gathered close at hand for what he planned to do.

He stopped speaking abruptly, suddenly tired of keeping up an act. Maybe it reminded him too much of the weeks spent as Nathan, and the weeks before that spent in increasing uncertainty about his identity. _The identity issues - those didn't have anything to do with the Petrellis,_ he realized. He shook the thought away and tried to convince himself, _No, everything is their fault!_

He snapped his eyes up to Heidi, bringing his mind to his real purpose here. He would kill her in front of her children - that was his goal. It was easy. She had no power and neither did the boys. She was completely vulnerable; there was nothing stopping him. Nathan hadn't even _liked_ her very much, the asshole, much less loved her. No familial obligation or parental love would stop Sylar's hand. She was a cast-off and that garnered some small sympathy, but she still a rich bitch who carried the Petrelli name. Sylar rifled through Nathan's memories of her, feeling an unaccustomed need to work himself up to this.

He looked at the woman and saw her layered with a thousand memories that didn't belong to him: in her wheelchair, sitting supportively next to him at the podium when she didn't even like his candidacy; sharing her body with him in passion; dancing in finery at one of his business parties where she knew no one but him; arguing and fighting with him when he was being unreasonable; never so radiant as she had been in her bridal dress; holding their first born lovingly to her breast … a whole life. He was about to take _an entire life_ and it was a life he knew, intimately.

He looked down at his hands, concealed under the guise of another, knowing the lethal power they held regardless of the form. It itched to be released. _I should just get it over with._ Getting rid of this horrid … empathy was why he'd come here after all. His hands did not move. His nose wrinkled in disgust at himself. He tried to imagine doing it to her, tried to think of the blood because he intended to carve her like a special just to make a point, the stunned expression that came with sudden death and brain injury … he felt sick. He felt horrified. _What the hell am I doing? Why am I here? Why __**her**__? She hasn't done anything to me!_ His mother's voice from so long ago rang in his mind: _"You? You could never hurt anyone."_

His mother had been wrong. She'd been stupid. They were all stupid! He'd come here to prove something. He was going to damn well prove it. He raised his hand, trying to ignore the painted nails and how it trembled indecisively.

As if on cue, Monty came trotting over to his mother, holding his glass up high, loudly interrupting by saying, "Milk! Milk! Milk! I'm outta milk, Mommy!" He'd always been the baby of the family and now he was acting more immature than necessary, showing off for company. He was a lot like Peter … another wash of memories Sylar didn't want flowed through his brain as his hand fell back to the table. But this time they weren't Nathan's.

'_Mommy' …_ A woman killed in front of her son, shoved roughly out of a car in the dusty parking lot of a roadside diner. Blood covered her forehead and for a moment the memory wavered, superimposed with his attempted fantasy of Heidi's murder from only moments before. A little boy staring out at his mother's body, saying, '_Mommy_.' He let his hand fall again.

Heidi tore her eyes from Sylar's bizarre and obvious mood swings. She spoke to Monty and said, haltingly at first, "I-I see that. Do you want more?" She took the glass vacantly, trying in vain to discern what was wrong with her neighbor.

The boy didn't notice, clamoring for her attention greedily. "Yes! Yes, yes, yes!"

She nodded and stood, walking slowly to the refrigerator. As she poured the drink, she said to Sylar, "Betty, are you sure you're feeling well?"

"No. No, I'm not," he choked out, getting unsteadily to his feet. _I can't even stay in character as __**myself**__, much less this assumed one._ He thought this with a mixture of frustrated rage and hopelessness. He looked at Monty as the boy took his glass of milk and beamed at Sylar, not knowing what monster lurked behind the mask of the kindly middle-aged woman from next door. Sylar had intended Nathan's sons to see his crime today and leave the boys alive, traumatized, for Angela and Peter to have to deal with. What would it make them to see their mother murdered coldly before them? What had it made _**him?**_ Nausea twisted his stomach.

"I need to go," he said, making his way to the door as quickly as he could in the odd, low heels the woman wore. He didn't come back.

Just a few minutes later, he stood in the neighbor's home, looming over the housewife's cooling corpse. He wanted to have enjoyed it, but he just felt empty and hollowed out. It was an accomplishment, but such a wretched one. _Is this what I've come to? Killing strangers for no reason - or rather, just to prove that I can?_ He felt worse than when he'd started, except this time instead of one of the Petrellis showing him how far they could knock him down, he'd lowered himself all on his own. He shuddered.

There was nothing to do but stay the course. He went through the motions, pinning her body to the wall like he'd done in his earliest kills. He used her blood to leave a message for the Petrellis and then he left, another life ruined, no more than a piece of collateral damage in the ongoing feud.


End file.
